


Touch

by Plenty_of_Paper



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 03:24:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11371572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plenty_of_Paper/pseuds/Plenty_of_Paper
Summary: We all use touch to communicate with each other - love, comfort, sexual desire, friendliness.





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> In the wake of Galen Erso's death, Jyn retreats to a corner of the ship to grieve. Bodhi Rook goes to find her.

“Um, Jyn?” Bodhi asks, a nervous tremble in his voice. He swallows dryly, his throat clicking.

“What do you want,” Jyn snarls. Bodhi winces. She’s sitting with her back to a corner, her eyes sharp and watchful, expression shifting like a tempestuous ocean - in turns, furious, stony, despairing, haunted.

“I -” he hesitates, because what words can he offer her? Her father is dead. “I am sorry.” Words are so paltry in the face of grief. He wonders what words would help heal his own because Galen is gone.

She stares at him for a long, long moment, her jaw so tight he can see the muscles working.

“Can - can I sit,” he asks when he can’t handle the tense quiet anymore. She starts, as if she’d forgotten he was there, and nods but doesn’t move from her corner. Bodhi perches on the bench next to her, carefully maintaining space between them. They sit in silence for a long while. Jyn doesn’t seem interested in talking, and Bodhi doesn’t know how to begin.

What did he say?” she asks suddenly, voice raspy.

“I-I’m sorry?”

“My father,” she says, her body shifting restlessly next to him, “what did he say to you? To make you defect? You said you didn't see his message to me, so what was it that made you follow him?”

Bodhi closes his eyes. His heart beats loud in his ears.

“Er,” he says, and horrifyingly, the syllable slips out of his mouth as tears well in his eyes. “It - it wasn’t anything he said, really.” He chances a glance at Jyn, and she looks...disappointed. Of course, she was hoping he would have stories for her. But how can he put into words what Galen Erso did for him?

“He made me feel like I could be good again.” The sentence almost sticks in his chest.

Jyn makes a soft noise of contemplation, and he senses her nod. Bodhi lets his head rest back against the wall at his back, his fingers worry at the fraying seams on his sleeve.

“I’m not a good man,” he says quietly, steeling himself. “My mother - she taught me to be good and brave, and I betrayed her when I went to work for the Empire. They didn’t give me a choice, really, but a lot of boys I knew died rather than work for such evil. I was too scared to die, so I went.”

“The first time I saw him, your father, I was so scared.”

_The weather was bad - so rainy he couldn’t see and so windy it took all his strength and wits to keep the ship on course - and he’d clipped the side of a cliff. It wasn’t enough to damage his ship, but the collision jostled the cargo and caused it to go crashing around the hold. When he landed, Galen Erso strode through the rain to meet him, surveyed the damaged parts, and fixed his gaze on Bodhi, who quailed._

_“I’m sorry, sir,” he whispered, his shoulders hunched, already waiting for some form of punishment._

_“Who are you?” Erso asked, and his tone was kinder than Bodhi had expected._

_“I’m a cargo pilot, sir,” Bodhi answered._

_“And your name?”_

_“Rook, sir. Bodhi Rook.”_

_“Bodhi Rook, look at me.”_

_Bodhi raised his eyes. Erso was smiling down at him, eyes squinted against the rain._

_“The damage is inconsequential, we’re more than capable of fixing that ourselves. You will come inside and dry off, and you’ll stay the night; this weather is too dangerous for flying.”_

_“With all due respect, sir,” Bodhi whispered, eyes dropping to the ground again, “I’m told I need to fly back straight away.” Erso pursed his lips, thoughtfully._

_“Well, we wouldn’t want you to get in trouble, would we?” he mused. “No worries, I’ll tell them myself.”_

_“There’s no need, sir,” Bodhi responded, panic rising in his chest. “I can fly.”_

_“No,” Erso said, shaking his head, “you’ll stay.” The authority in his voice was unquestionable and Bodhi had no choice but to nod. “Come. It’s warm inside. I’ll take care of the rest.”_

“It was the first kindness I had been shown since my mother died,” he tells Jyn, who is facing him now. Her knee rests against his thigh, but she seems not to notice.

“And that was enough to change your loyalties?” she asks. Bodhi smiles sadly and shakes his head.

“I wasn’t ever really loyal to the Empire - I never believed, not like some of the others. But Galen, he looked at me and he saw...me.” Bodhi can’t help the wonder that infuses his voice, that a good man should have seen a lowly cargo pilot and thought he was good too.

Jyn leans forward, her knee pressing more firmly against his thigh. She’s so close. It would be easy to reach out. Bodhi has found that touch can communicate worlds where words so often fail. But he doesn’t know her yet, and she looks brittle, like she’ll shake apart if he touches her.

“He looked at me and didn’t see a coward,” Jyn makes a face, “what everyone else saw,” he explains. “He saw better.”

_The first time Galen hugged him - a casual, friendly hug - was also the first time Bodhi had been touched in years. He gasped at the physical contact._

_“Have I hurt you?” Galen asked, pulling back and peering into his face. “Bodhi, you’re,” he used his thumbs to wipe away the tears that have spilled, “why are you crying?”_

_“I’m sorry,” Bodhi said, sniffling, trying to turn his head. But Galen held his face still and looked into his eyes._

_“There is nothing to be sorry for,” he said simply, compassion in his eyes. He kissed Bodhi’s forehead, whispered, “Nothing,” into his temple._

_Bodhi closed his eyes, curled his hands around Galen’s wrists._

_They talked more, after that. Bodhi’s tongue loosened, like Galen’s touch was its key, and he told Galen stories of Jedha - of bright, hot deserts and a blindingly yellow sun. Galen, in turn, told him stories of Lah’mu, of his farm._

_“I was not a good farmer,” Galen said, laughing at himself. Laughter was a good look on his care-worn face. “Lyra helped, but I was hopeless.” Then his smile faded, replaced by a wistful expression. “Jyn took after her mother - good with the plants and too stubborn to give up when they wouldn’t bend to her will.”_

_“You miss them, don’t you?”_

_“Every day,” Galen answered, a heavy sigh on the words. “Every day.”_

Jyn has a strange expression on her face. Bodhi shifts uncomfortably, because - like her father - she seems to see straight through to him.

“Who was my father to you?” she asks. There’s no judgment in her voice, just a quiet curiosity.

“I loved him,” he whispers. He wishes it didn’t have to hurt so much.

_They didn’t always have much time together, between Bodhi’s delivery schedules and Galen’s work. But Galen was touch-starved, too, and he found ways to make contact with Bodhi, even around others - a hand on his shoulder or the middle of his back, passing by him so closely his chest brushes against Bodhi’s back. Bodhi reciprocates by leaning into the contact. Galen’s gaze was as heavy as a touch, and Bodhi could always feel it when he was unloading his ship, when he was completing his paperwork, taking his meals, walking through the hallways of the base._

_When they could be alone, Galen would cradle Bodhi’s face and look at him as if he were a precious, precious thing as Bodhi looked back, his hands tracing up and down the older man’s arms. Then Galen would lean in, slow until Bodhi felt like he would burst from anticipation, and press their lips together, their tongues, their breath. Their bodies moved, drawn toward each other._

_On the rare nights when Bodhi was able to stay, he spent them in Galen’s bed, craving the contact everywhere, wanting to express the feelings he couldn’t name with the touch of his lips, his fingers. Galen would look at him at him, open and vulnerable and slightly lost. Bodhi always felt safe and seen in those moments, and he would kiss Galen’s flushed cheeks as the older man pressed into him._

_“Bodhi?” Galen said on one of these nights._

_“Hmm?” Bodhi asked, mostly asleep, but Galen didn’t speak again for awhile, opting instead to trace patterns across Bodhi’s chest - equations, calculations. Bodhi was dozing off again when Galen murmured,_

_“I love you.”_

_Bodhi’s eyes flew opened, and he turned in Galen’s arms so they were looking at each other, their noses practically touching._

_“What did you say?” he whispered, his heart thudding in his chest._

_“I love you.”_

_“W-why?” he asked. Galen smiled softly, brushed a lock of Bodhi’s hair behind one of his ears, traced the line of Bodhi’s jaw._

_“Because you’re Bodhi Rook,” he said. “Because your smile brightens my dreary world, because you want so badly to do the right thing, because you are a good man and you inspire me to be a better one.”_

_Bodhi stared at him, overwhelmed, for a long while. Galen’s smile faltered, veering toward hurt, when Bodhi reached out to cup his cheek._

_“I am not a good man, Galen,” he said, feeling like he was confessing his sins. “I’ve done my mother’s memory a great wrong, and I’ve helped these monsters. I - I can’t ever forgive myself.”_

_“You can right your wrongs, Bodhi,” Galen insisted. “You can. It won’t be easy, but you can. And, in the process, you can help me right mine.”_

_For a split second, Bodhi wanted to argue, wanted to ask him how. Instead, he kissed him, because Galen had now given him hope. Galen had already showed him affection, had seen him and been seen by him. For this man to also give him this hope for redemption - it was a gift he had never thought he would receive._

_“I love you too, Galen Erso,” Bodhi said, kissing the words into his skin._

“Why?” She puts a hand on his thigh, and there is hunger on her face. Bodhi places his hand on hers, looks into her eyes because he owes her this.

“He was kind,” he says, his lips curling into a smile despite his sorrow. “He was a good man, who loved his wife and his child.” Her face crumples, and Bodhi thinks she looks so young and so old at the same time. Like father, like daughter. He reaches out now, brushes her hair away from her face and tucks it behind her ear, his finger following the line of her jaw until it reaches her chin.

“My father used to do that,” she says, a trembling smile on her face. Bodhi responds with his own.

“I suppose I picked it up from him.”

She looks away from him, but twines her fingers with his.

“Jyn, he - he loved you so much,” he says. “It was the easiest way to cheer him up when he was down - asking him to tell me stories of his Stardust.” He smiles, remembering the way Galen’s face would light up when he talked about his family.

“Was he sad often?”

“He missed you, and Lyra,” he says. “He had to lie, and he lived among cruel men.”

“But he had you?”

Bodhi nods, “he did. And he hoped. He hoped that someone would come along who could - and would - bring this message to you.” He laughs, runs a hand through his messy hair. “Though I think he pictured someone a bit more like Cassian than me.”  
She shakes her head, turns his hand over and traces the lines of his palm.

“My father always believed in people,” she tells him. “He trusted me to know what to do, and I was just a child.” She looks up at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “He believed in the kinds of people lesser men would underestimate.”

Bodhi can’t think of a way to respond, so he doesn’t.

“Do you believe me?” she asks, so quietly he almost doesn’t hear. “Cassian doesn’t believe me,” her voice breaks, “and now my father won’t be able to tell the rebels himself.”

“I believe you,” he says with such conviction that she meets his eyes. “I didn’t hear his message but -”

“Why not? Weren’t you hurt that he wouldn’t let you?”

“He asked me if I wanted to,” Bodhi says. “He offered to play it for me.”

“So why didn’t you watch it?!” she asks, voice rising. She grabs his arm and squeezes and he winces (this is the grip of someone strong, telling him they can break him if they wanted to and he thinks of a menacing commander with rancid breath and a delight in pain and his heart nearly jumps out of his throat). “You could have provided proof. You’re the pilot, you could have made Cassian believe, you could have saved my father.”

“Don’t you think I haven’t thought that?” he says, pulling away from her. “Don’t you think I wish I could have told the Captain yes, I saw it, what she says is true? Don’t you think I want nothing more than for him to be alive and safe, with me? With us?!” Bodhi realizes that he’s jumped to his feet.

“So why didn’t you watch it?!” Jyn howls, standing too.

“Because it was private,” he cries, tears splashing down his front, “because I wanted to respect his relationship with you, because I felt guilty that he had given me so much, I didn’t want him to give me that too.”

Bodhi buries his face in his hands and takes a deep breath.

“I loved your father,” he says into his palms. “I loved him, but he gave up so much for everyone else until he had almost nothing left to give, and I thought - I wanted him to have something that was just his.”

They both fall into silence, listening to the hum of the ship’s engines, their own heavy breathing. Bodhi’s crying again, heaving and painful and his eyes burn from the tears.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wish I could have saved him.” He’s desperate for her to know this. This is what he’d been trying to tell her since they met. “I wish I could have saved him. I wish,” he sobs, “I wish he were here.”

_“Goodbye, Bodhi Rook,” Galen whispered. Bodhi’s shaking, and he can barely breathe, he’s so scared, but Galen is counting on him. The galaxy is counting on him._

_“Galen.”_

_“You can do this,” Galen says softly, taking hold of Bodhi’s hands. “You can do this. Be safe.” He presses a kiss to each of Bodhi’s palms - a benediction, a blessing, a prayer._

_“We’ll see each other again,” Bodhi whispers, a promise he doesn’t know he can keep. “I love you.” He can’t bring himself to say goodbye, so he doesn’t._

Jyn embraces him, hides her face in his shoulder as she cries. He wraps his arms around her and cries too - for his destroyed home, his lost love. So much heartbreak in so little time.

Bodhi’s not sure how long they stand in the middle of a ship that’s taking them far, far away from the possibility of a quiet life, but eventually they calm.

“I’m glad,” she says, pulling away from him at last, her breath shuddering out of her as she scrubs the tears from her face, “that he had you.”


End file.
